


Not yet

by bennysparks



Category: EastEnders (TV)
Genre: Coming Out, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-10
Updated: 2019-09-10
Packaged: 2020-10-13 20:15:53
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 710
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20588444
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bennysparks/pseuds/bennysparks
Summary: Jay and Callum have some lunch.





	Not yet

A day after his visit to Ben in the hospital—in front of practically the entire Mitchell clan—Callum sits on a park bench with a bacon sarnie, testing to see if he's invisible again when Jay slides onto the seat next to him, staring straight ahead. They've both been at the funeral home all morning but Callum has studiously avoided being alone with him, although he isn't about to admit that. Callum Highway is not, as a rule, very good at admitting things.

Jay is holding a pork pie in a paper bag. "So," he says, watching kids scream at each other over on the equipment.

"So," Callum says.

"You and my brother," Jay says.

"Uh." Callum takes a bite and chews, carefully, even though he knows that he will eventually have to swallow and then he will have to say something else, something a little more cogent then uh. Jay wasn't in the Queen Vic during the shooting—he was upstairs, with Lola—but everybody else saw them, and then Jay was at the hospital yesterday. Callum knows they're going to have to talk about this. Eventually he decides he's held off too long, and Callum says, "Would—would that be weird?"

"Him and me, we once lived with his ex-girlfriend, who was my ex-girlfriend an' all, after she'd faked a pregnancy to stop him from coming out."

Callum almost chokes on his sarnie. "What?"

"Ben Mitchell runs on pure drama."

Callum releases a dry chuckle. "If he were here, he'd make a joke about getting shot at someone else's wedding reception."

Jay actually giggles. "My point is that Ben Mitchell don't do nothing but weird. You get used to it after a while. And he could do worse than someone who's already a mate." He scrapes at his nose. "It weren't obvious, you know, but it doesn't surprise me."

"What?"

"You and him."

"It doesn't surprise you?"

"He was always looking for an excuse to wind you up. Following you around like you were his big project. I've got, like, a sixth sense when it comes to Ben Mitchell's big gay feelings. I've had to sit through all of them." Jay actually laughs then. "There was this one night when I was trying to, like, coach him on saying it to Abi. He just started shouting I am gay, I am gay over and over again. He was so angry."

It's not like Callum doesn't know it was hard for Ben, coming out. Ben has told him about it, here and there. He can guess. But that doesn't mean he can picture it easily. I am gay, I am gay, I am gay. Callum looks away, back towards the Queen Vic. Everyone there saw him, holding Ben's head and putting pressure on a bullet wound. "You said you had a sixth sense about his—about his feelings. But what about—"

There is a pause, Jay scraping at the corner of his mouth with his tongue. "He doesn't actually go after straight men, as a rule." He clears his throat after that, and Callum wants to ask when—"When you were in with him yesterday. I think that's the most relaxed I've ever seen you, the entire time I've known you."

Callum hunches forward, crossing his arms tightly. "I haven't said it," he says. 

Jay doesn't have to ask. "Really?"

Callum shakes his head. In the cafe, yesterday, he sat across from his brother and nodded his head when Stuart finally—carefully, awkwardly—asked. That's the closest he's come. Before that, he denied it every time, even while—even that night in the park, the one time he and Ben Mitchell—well. "Not yet," he says.

That is an admission.

"Well, I happen to have some experience with this, if you want to say it now."

Callum gnaws at his lower lip, ignores the sting from the healing cut. "Nah," he says. "I think he should be the first one to hear it out loud."

He should expect the snort that comes from his left but it still surprises him. "Keep talking like that and he's going to keep winding you up with every waking breath."

Callum looks in the other direction to avoid showing off his blush.


End file.
